Untamed

by Sharon Ihle

  "Going somewhere, ladies?" asked Daniel in Cheyenne. After they answered, he translated for Josie. "They're leaving the ranch. The weather is warming up so quickly, they want to return to the encampment now and send some family members back to collect the bodies of their dead husbands."

  "Oh, my God." Josie grimaced and clutched her stomach. "I forgot about the men in the wellhouse. Are you going to ride along with the women to make sure they make it to Lame Deer?"

  Daniel had considered the possibility, and even suggested it, but his' offer was turned down. "They said they'll be fine, and that they know this area better than I do. I'm going to the barn to get the horse Wolf Lies Down left behind, so maybe this would be a good time for you to say your good-byes."

  "Oh, do I have to?" Again a grimace. "I know I'll cry."

  "These days you cry just because the sun comes up. I'm sure they're used to it by now:" With that little reminder of her condition and a quick smile, Daniel turned and headed for the barn.

  Girding herself and thinking of her husband as a coward for leaving her to face the chore of making her farewells alone, Josie approached Walking Strange, who was still dressed in dirty, torn clothing.

  "I wasn't figuring on you two leaving us so soon," she said, twisting the rawhide fringe on her bodice. "In fact, I was kind of hoping you'd be here when the baby came."

  She patted her swollen abdomen, and immediately Walking Strange seemed to understand. The Cheyenne widow began murmuring soothing phrases and even gave Josie's tummy a comforting pat.

  "If you're telling me that everything's going to be fine, I hope you're right. I have to admit that I've never been so scared in my life as I am when I think about having this baby, and not just the birthing part of it. How good a mother can I be when I don't even want to be a mother?"

  Walking Strange smiled, looking as if she knew exactly what Josie had said, and threw her arms around her for an unexpected hug. Again murmuring Cheyenne phrases, she patted her shoulder, then released her and backed away. Josie thought she might have been crying.

  Little Skunk approached next, wary as usual, and muttered something under her breath.

  "Same to you, I guess."

  Little Skunk didn't respond or even meet her gaze. Josie put a touch of amusement in her tone. "I expect you probably think I'm crazy doing all this talking when no one can understand a word I'm saying, but it sure has been good conversation for me. I thank you for putting up with me, even though you must think I'm nuts."

  "I doubt she thinks you're nuts," Daniel said from behind as he returned with the widow's horse in tow. "You might be a little peculiar from time to time, of course, but never crazy."

  Josie flashed him a grin. "You do have exceptionally good hearing, don't you?"

  "Yes, ma'am, I most certainly do. In case you haven't noticed, I'm exceptionally good at most everything I do."

  The look he gave her after that suggestive remark was intimate, to say the least. A little embarrassed, even though she knew the Cheyenne women couldn't understand what Daniel had said, Josie turned her back to them and faced her husband.

  "I've already said my good-byes." Her eyes prickling with those confounded tears, Josie blinked them back. "I think I'd better go to the barn now before I start crying. Would you meet me there after the women have gone? I think something's wrong with Sweetpea."

  "I'll be along in a minute."

  Daniel watched Josie as she walked away, far more interested in her than that damned buffalo. He always wanted her, but something about watching her bloom with his child, as if she were another flower of spring, really woke up his libido and set his blood to boiling. Their lovemaking had taken on a new wildness now that Daniel no longer had to withdraw at crucial moments, but Josie still held something back from hire, a part of herself she refused to release. As she had the night after they wed, she still refused to undress in front of him, claiming a modesty she sure as hell didn't show once she got him beneath the covers. Today Daniel intended to see every beautiful inch of his wife, to feast his eyes as welt as his body as she writhed beneath his touch.

  His thoughts going more and more to the moment when he could hold Josie in his arms, Daniel hurried the Cheyenne widows off of his ranch, and then headed straight for the barn. He found her standing near the feed bucket, an overturned can of precious grain at her feet. She was braced with one hand against the backside of a stall, and holding her belly with the other. She was also staring off into the distance, her features rigid with shock.

  "Josie?" Daniel asked quietly. "Is something wrong?"

  Her eyes went to him, then cleared, but her voice sounded dazed. "No, I just had a little bubble of gas or something."

  Thinking he knew what that bubble might have been, he made a guess as he drew near. "Did the baby move?"

  "Baby?" She released her tummy. "No, nothing like that."

  As always, Josie grew remote when talk turned to discussion of their child. It was as if speaking out loud about the miracle growing inside her body made it too real for her, and that by ignoring the subject altogether, it wouldn't be true. Daniel hated that Josie felt that way, but loved her so much he was willing to accept her attitude. Her pregnancy was such a forbidden subject that even Daniel tried not to think too much about the coming baby, refusing to let himself wonder if it would be a boy or a girl, a single baby or twins. Or which of them the child might favor.

  "Daniel," she said, cutting off his musings. "I want you to have a look at Sweetpea. I think she—"

  "Let's have a look at you first." Before she could stop him, Daniel took her by the waist and pulled her to him, caressing, her hips and following the contours of her bottom. He hiked up the hem of her dress, feeling the nude woman beneath the buckskin. "Oh, my," he murmured huskily. "This is a nice surprise."

  "It's wash day," she said, her voice catching. "Stop that."

  "Stop?" He cupped the mound of her sex, then caressed her there in a teasing, circling motion. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

  "Yes," she hissed, leaning into his fingers. "For now, anyway. Tonight we can—"

  "Now would be even better." Daniel not only left his hand where it was, but worked his fingers through the mat of burnished hair there until he felt nothing but moist, lusty woman. "Your Cheyenne friends are gone, the twins are asleep, and spring seems to have sprung up on me in the damndest place. Want to see?"

  Josie's eyes rolled and her lashes fluttered. Her breath came out in a shaky sigh as she said, "Daniel, for heaven's sake. Why can't we wait until tonight?"

  "Because, my love, I can't wait that long."

  With very little resistance from Josie, Daniel lifted her up onto the apple crate directly behind them, bringing her hips level with his. Then in one swift movement he raised the dress over her head. She immediately snatched it out of his hands and tried to cover herself with it.

  "Daniel. Have you gone crazy?"

  "Why is it crazy to want to have a look at you? How can you still be so shy?"

  Josie chewed on her bottom lip, her expression filled with concern, not modesty, as if she were puzzling out a great problem.

  "All I want is the pleasure of looking at you," he whispered. "I love you too much to ask for more than that."

  "Oh, Daniel, I wish—"

  He placed a finger across her lips. "I swear, this will be enough."

  Her eyes suddenly swam with something Daniel didn't dare believe was love, and then Josie released the dress and stood there naked before him, her gently rounded tummy somehow adding to her magnificent allure.

  "Oh, you are so beautiful," he said, filling his eyes and heart with the woman he loved. "More beautiful than I even dared to dream you were."

  Her breath was coming in little puffs by then, a sign Daniel knew well. His trousers were down around his ankles before she could even finish a surprised gasp. Then he went to her, kissing, fondling, and then finally filling each delicious inch of his wife's very responsive body. She came fast and s
he came hard, arching her back so rigidly, she nearly fell off the apple crate. Daniel had meant to prolong her pleasure and his, to luxuriate in the sensations and the intensity of the moment, but he convulsed on the heels of her climax in a mind-shuddering release, an explosion that almost took his feet right out from underneath him. His last lucid thought as he went over the edge was of heaven. And that he would never, for any reason, let go of the angel in his arms.

  Later, after they'd cooled down a little, Josie lingered in Daniel's embrace, trading kisses and mindless words that were for him expressions of love. When he got around to pulling her dress down over her head and adjusting his own clothing, again he spotted the overturned can on the floor.

  "What were you doing with the grain?" he asked, noting the bright red flush on Josie's cheeks as she smoothed her dress. "We're about out, you know."

  "Oh, sorry. That was an accident." She dropped to her knees and began scraping the grain back into the container. "I was about to go check on Sweetpea and give her a treat, but I dropped the can when the baby—I dropped the can. Will you come have a look and see what you think of her?"

  Daniel didn't miss how close she'd come to acknowledging their child, or the fact that even that special moment didn't take precedence over her damned buffalo. It seemed almost sacrilegious.

  "How am I going to do that?" he snapped. "She pitches a fit if she so much as catches my scent."

  "Hide behind the barn door, but please, have a look." Not even his sudden irritability could detract her from the beast. "She's acting really strange. Not only did she refuse to eat her hay this morning, but she started bullying the cattle as if she were trying to push them right out of the corral."

  The three cows penned up with Sweetpea were due to calve soon. From what Daniel had seen so far, they and his shorthorn bull pretty much represented the last of his herd. Unwilling to take chances with those calves no matter how much Josie adored her stinky pet, Daniel not only accompanied her, but beat her to the back of the barn.

  "If that buffalo is attacking my cattle," he warned, pushing the door open a crack. "We're going to have to get rid of her. Those cows are probably all I've got left of my herd."

  Josie squeezed by him and looked out into the corral. The buffalo was grunting loudly and walking in circles at the far end of the pen. The cows were huddled together under the lean-to near the door.

  "Sweetpea isn't attacking them," she said. "I'm going to go have a look at her. See what you think, okay?"

  The moment Josie stepped into the corral, the buffalo stopped its aimless circling and raised its tail in anger. Then it charged.

  "Josie—look out!" Daniel stepped into the corral and made a grab for her, but she ducked under his grasp.

  "Get back out of sight," she shouted. "I'm all right, but you're making her nervous."

  "Dammit, that beast will kill you."

  "No, she won't. Trust me."

  True to the confidence her mistress had in her, Sweetpea stopped several feet short of Josie, but stood there sniffing the air, pawing the ground, and grunting. The beast couldn't see Daniel by then because he was hiding in the shadows just inside the barn, but she sure as hell knew he was there.

  Josie slowly looked over her shoulder and whispered out the side of her mouth, "See what I mean?"

  Daniel grumbled to himself, hating the idea of his pregnant wife trapped in a corral with a half-crazed buffalo, but he studied the enraged beast anyway, looking for clues to her odd behavior. If, however, for one moment it looked as if Josie might be in danger, Daniel intended to keep her from harm if it meant he had to wrestle the beast with his bare hands.

  As usual, Josie's presence had a calming influence on the buffalo. She walked right up to the animal, shaking the can of feed, and then petted its nose before offering a handful of grain. Sweetpea refused the offering, but allowed Josie to continue petting her and murmuring words of comfort.

  Talking to Daniel now, she said, "I can't understand what's wrong. She won't even take the grain." Still talking, Josie slowly circled the beast, running her hands along its shaggy body as she went. "Maybe she's got a splinter or hurt herself somewhere. Do you see any signs of blood?"

  Daniel knew better than to alert the buffalo by answering or questioning Josie unless he had some concrete facts, so he continued to watch quietly as she examined the beast. When she disappeared behind Sweetpea's slender rump, Josie suddenly popped right back out again.

  "My God!" she said, her eyes huge. "She's dilated. She looks as if she's about to calve."

  In his surprise, Daniel forgot himself and stepped into the corral. "That's impossible," was all he got out before the buffalo charged.

  Ducking back inside the barn, Daniel managed to get the door closed a split second before a very lethal head crashed against it.

  When he heard the animal moving away from the barn, he opened the door a crack and whispered to Josie, "See if you can get Sweetpea backed into a corner, then use that can of grain to lure my cows into the barn. If it's privacy she wants, it's privacy she'll get."

  Again surprising Daniel with the ease with which she handled the situation, Josie herded her unusual pet to the far corner, where it immediately began to circle again. Then she quickly and quietly led the cows to the door, where Daniel stood at the ready. "Come on, girls," he urged, slapping their rumps to keep them moving. "You never know when your ugly friend out there will turn on you again."

  "Be quiet, Daniel. She'll hear you." Josie clutched her throat and took several deep breaths. "I can hardly believe this is happening. I had no idea Sweetpea was pregnant beneath all that hair.''

  "I'm not so sure you're right, Josie. How would she have gotten pregnant? We didn't see any signs of a bull buffalo before or after winter."

  She hesitated, thinking about that, then suggested, "Maybe the bull got killed or something. shortly after he bred her. How long is a buffalo pregnant anyway?"

  Daniel shrugged. "I don't know, maybe like cows, around nine months. What difference does that make? Sweetpea doesn't look any different than she did when she got here."

  "But she does," Josie insisted. "Her fur is at least twice as thick as it was, and it hangs down to the ground. There's no way to tell what's been going on under there."

  As if tired of listening to the argument over her condition, the great beast chose that moment to stop circling. Then she dropped to the ground. Without another word, Josie dashed out to where her precious pet lay. Moments later, Sweetpea gave birth.

  From his vantage point so far away, Daniel couldn't quite see the new baby, but he did spot the glistening birth sack as it emerged. Stunned by the unexpected event, he got an even bigger shock when Josie exclaimed, "It's a girl, and she's almost as white as the snow."

  While he'd never actually witnessed the birth of a buffalo, Daniel had seen enough bison calves to know that they usually had red or rusty tan fur that darkened as they aged. Thinking that Josie had confused the birth sack with the animal's fur, he sneaked out the front door, circled the barn on the upwind side of the corral, and quietly approached from Sweetpea's blind side. By then the new mother had risen and licked her calf clean. Clean enough, anyway, for him to see that the impossible had occurred—Sweetpea had given birth to a white buffalo.

  Daniel fell to his knees in both wonder and utter disbelief, then whispered as if praying, "Dear God in heaven."

  * * *

  Within hours of the calf's birth, it was scampering around the corral on spindly legs and greedily sucking the rich milk Sweetpea was producing on its behalf. Two Moons and Bang had awakened and now stood outside the corral with their father, as awed as anyone. Josie barely had a chance to get over the surprise herself, much less the opportunity to relish the sheer miracle of owning a rare white buffalo, before Daniel had to go and spoil the celebration.

  "You can't keep this to yourself, you know."

  Misunderstanding at first, she said, "Oh, I suppose we'll have a few unexpected visitors. I do
n't mind as long as they behave themselves."

  He shook his head. "I mean, I hope you aren't planning to keep both buffaloes all to yourself."

  "Why not? Since I own the mother, I also own the offspring, don't I?"

  "Legally, I suppose you do, but I'm talking about something a lot more important—the spiritual significance this will have for the Cheyenne nation."

  Josie looked from Daniel to his boys, who were staring up at her in undisguised worship. She hadn't actually thought about what she would eventually do with the white buffalo, but she did know that it was already worth its weight in gold, especially when it came time to secure a loan for her ranch.

  Gazing out on the ungainly calf, she said, "Just how important is a thing like this to the Cheyenne?"

  Daniel paused to collect his thoughts. "They'll see this calf as an omen, something that will signify healing and a chance for their dreams and visions to return,"

  "You mean they'll worship her or something like that?" He shrugged. "Something like that."

  Josie returned her gaze to the white miracle staggering toward her mother's teats and suddenly became determined to keep the rare prize for herself. "In that case I don't see why the Cheyenne would expect me to turn her over to them. Can't the chiefs just come and visit her when they want to go into a trance? I won't mind."

  Sighing heavily, Daniel said, "Let me put it another way, one you might understand better. This white buffalo isn't just some rare object that will make them hallucinate. To them, this will be like the second coming of Christ."

  Chapter 26

  The news traveled fast.

  Within days, tribal elders from both the Cheyenne and the Crow nations showed up, many of them bearing gifts. A few tried to use their offerings as barter in securing the animal for their own tribe. All of them looked on the calf as nothing short of a miracle. Josie was quickly renamed Voestae, White Buffalo Calf Woman, and the ranch and its treasure became the scene of utter chaos.

  Indians were all over the place, most of them chanting and praying, and tipis dotted the meadow where Daniel had hoped to be fattening up his cattle for market—a herd, thanks to the terrible winter, that numbered only three cows, two calves, and one bull. The cows and their young had rejoined Sweetpea and her baby in the corral. The third cow, due to have her young any day, had taken up temporary residence in the barn.